Monday, 11 May 2009

Lunch @ Shelley's Gourmet Cafe, Cape Town

I was lucky to visit Cape Town for a glorious day last month and before I went, I sifted through all my foodie and design mags to see which places I haven't been to yet. I any case, I plan to blog not to far from the future on eating in Cape Town, but for this last trip, I'm just going to share my "tasty experience" at a newly opened cafe on trendy Kloof Street, Shelley's Gourmet Cafe. I read about Shelley's in the recent issue of Elle Decoration - South Africa and thought it was worth a try. After walking for ages up the steep hill that leads from Long Street up Kloof Street and as time was creeping towards 3pm, I finally stumbled onto Shelley's, tired, thirsty and hungry. I walked in to what was a quiet looking converted bungalow (I had just missed the lunchtime crowd) and being a true fan of Al Fresco (you've got to seize every opportunity to eat outside if you live in Austria) I headed outside out for my meal and coincidentally met shelley herself - warm and a real foodie enthusiast. As I was almost gasping with thirst I ordered what I thought would be a good thirst quencher - anything with mint, so I ordered this delicious apple mint concoction.

I was glad that it cam in a nice long glass and not a short one and snapped away before I gulped it down. I was confused by what to snack on - there was all these delicious combinations, but knowing that I would be flying back through London on an 11 hour flight, I knew that I had to try something fairly light, without fish/meat. I was further confused but in a good way with choice of bread (baguette, ciabatta and something with a croissant/parmesan texture). Using my wife's style, I just asked Shelley for her advice, eventually settling for roasted vegetables, mozarella and pesto on baguette.

My snack turned out to be more filling than I anticipated, which meant there was no space for dessert... ahhhh ! BUT all is not lost. In any case, I wandered through the cafe-cum-house and snapped away.

The design makes you want to relax naturally because it has a homely feel, so I wandered into the room with the cakes naturally, sat down and joined Shelley for about a 30 minute chat about food, cookbooks, cafes and travelling - the next best thing to eating good food is talking about it, so it was tough for me to tear myself away, but it was for a good thing - to pack and catch my flight back to my family.

OK ! I got you... how can I seat in front of cakes and not at least buy one, so I decided for the Lemon one, which Shelley gave me a good whiff off before packing it to go.

Well ! all good meals, end with one thing for me, coffee, and in the afternoon, it has to be espresso. I was pleasantly surprised that Shelley is also into coffee, and so we wandered into the room that houses her Wega Espresso machine and she pulled me a double espresso.

Anyway, it was time to leave, but please if you visit Cape Town, even if it for just a day like me, try and pop over. I can't wait to go back and try the Espresso French Toast and other goodies on the menu like passion fruit cheesecake. Shelley's Gourmet Cafe is on 90 Kloof Street.

Hello, a friend and I want to start a Facebook fan page for Shelley's, since we like the place so much and have been scouring the internet to find pics without much success. Yours are so good I would not want to use them without permission and crediting properly. Would you mind if we used some of these pictures and added a link somewhere?